


Misfire Continuation

by unpossible



Series: Misfire 'verse [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Family, Holidays, Jealous Derek, Multi, POV Multiple, Relationship Issues, Time Travel, Werewolf Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-10 23:48:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3307736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unpossible/pseuds/unpossible
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a collection of snapshots of the Hale Pack in the months and years following Misfire. For those of you left vaguely unsatisfied/worried by the ending, I hope this helps.</p><p>You really do need to read (or listen to) Misfire before reading this.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collection of snapshots of the Hale Pack in the months and years following Misfire. For those of you left vaguely unsatisfied/worried by the ending, I hope this helps.
> 
> You really do need to read (or listen to) Misfire before reading this.

 

Isaac stands in the Hale kitchen, which seems to be warmed as much by goodwill and laughter as it is by the actual heating. It’s pretty overwhelming, especially for someone with his history. And he’s still not sure exactly how he came to be here.

Well- he knows _how,_ obviously. It can be summed up in one word that starts with “S” and rhymes with has-a-surprising-amount-of-wiles.

Anthony passes Isaac a soda and doesn’t give him a single curious glance about the no-alcohol thing. It’s just one more reason to love the Hales. Isaac takes a deep swig and watches Peter and Talia talk over the top of each other as they try to get their opposing versions of a family anecdote across to their audience. Isaac fakes interest, but he’s completely focused on the possibility of a car pulling up outside, because he is, apparently, a Grade-A idiot. This is the second time in his short life that he has fixated on someone completely out of his league.

It had taken him years to get over his semi-crush on Scott McCall. _Years_. And he hadn’t even- he doesn’t even seem to be actually _gay_ , for God’s sake.

After one, abortive trip to a gay bar two towns over Isaac had immediately realized that was _not_ for him. Even a dance floor heaving with glistening, muscular bodies hadn’t done it for Isaac Lahey.

Of course not. Apparently his loser-gene was strong enough that it couldn’t be that simple. He couldn’t just be gay, or bi. He had to be Scott-specific, and then spend years pining for someone who barely even knew he was alive to begin with. There had been something about the guy he hadn’t been able to shake.

 

 

Isaac blinks back into the present when Peter and Talia both pause in the same second, then resume their stories after an odd moment of silence. No-one comments on it, though, and Isaac forgets it entirely when Anthony turns to him and says quietly, “I know we can be a bit overwhelming en masse. If you want to take a breather, go ahead.”

Isaac shoots him a grateful glance. The Hales _can_ actually be a bit overwhelming, not that Isaac’s ever going to say so out loud. He _likes_ it. He’s just not used to it. The way Isaac had grown up, a noisy house had meant something else entirely.

“Why don’t you go check ‘round the front of the house and see if the twins or the Seattle division have arrived yet?” Anthony suggests.

“Yeah, okay,” Isaac agrees readily.

He accepts a leg-tackle-hug from Peter’s kids as he goes, is smiling ruefully as he extracts himself and moves down the hall. For some reason it hits him just how close he’d come to missing out on all of this, just because of the Scott thing.

Isaac had hesitated for a long time over Stiles’s invitation, all those months ago. He almost hadn’t shown up to the lacrosse game. It wouldn’t have been hard to avoid the guy, after all, everyone knows the Sheriff’s son lives in Seattle. He’s making a big impression there, too, if his father’s stories are anything to go by, so what would Stiles have cared if Isaac had never showed? He could skip the game and it would all blow over. And it had seemed beyond stupid to start any kind of connection with the best friend of the guy he’d only just begun to get over.

But he’d done it anyway. Had sat with Stiles on the cold, hard benches at BHHS and shared mutual misery over the thrashing the Cyclones had suffered. And it had been fine. There had been no pity in Stiles’ eyes at any point. No prurient curiosity, no speculation. It had been like a cool drink on a hot day to just sit and be, without the spectre of his father and Cam and Isaac’s deafness and the endless gossip.

 

 

The front rooms of the house are empty for the moment, but in an amazing stroke of good timing when he glances out the window he sees a familiar car rolling to a stop on the gravel drive. Isaac’s chest tightens and he swallows as he reaches for the front door.

He _likes_ this, the weird way the Hales have swallowed him up and made him family without ever actually asking for his consent. But now, of course, he’s going to screw up the fake-family opportunity, _and_ the solid friendship he’s been slowly building with Stiles, by fixating on-

“Isaac,” a warm voice burbles, “hey, I didn’t realize you were already here.” Cool air flows through the open doorway of the Hale house.

“Hey,” he manages weakly, gut-punched at just the sight of her climbing the stairs up to the porch. “Hey, Rachel.” And then she hugs him. Damn it. He tries not to sniff too obviously as her arms circle his neck and her fragrance drifts past him.

“Lahey,” another voice says from right over her shoulder. Cora, waiting not-so-patiently on the porch.

“Cora,” he acknowledges, and forces his hands to loosen where they rested on Rachel’s back.

He and Cora don’t hug – she’s not the type. Most of the Hales are, though, or so Isaac has discovered, since Stiles Stilinski burst into his life and turned it upside down.

But Rachel’s the one who smiles, big and broad, when they meet. The one who remembers Isaac loves _The Office_ , that he only likes balsamic dressing on salads, and is allergic to horses.

But then, he tells himself sternly, she remembers everything about everyone. Isaac’s not an idiot. He knows it means nothing at all, it’s just how she is. Cora got all the attitude, Rachel got all the nurturing.

Isaac shuffles back and smiles at them both, head turned so that his good ear is facing toward them. He doesn’t even think about it anymore, and the Hales, thankfully, have never given it a moment’s notice. He pushes the door closed behind them and picks up two of their shopping bags, trying to ignore the emasculating fact that Cora is, as always, carrying twice what Isaac does. Apparently becoming a chef is accompanied by really impressive muscle development.

“Stiles and Derek show up?”

“Not yet,” Isaac says, and watches Rachel unwind her skinny scarf, the only concession she’s made to the cold. He’s lucky she didn’t throw on the cropped suede jacket that perfectly highlights the appealing curve of her hips and ass. It always short-circuits his brain completely, and it’s going to be complicated enough getting through Thanksgiving dinner without dealing with an inappropriate boner.

“Probably making out on the side of the road,” Cora says on her way to the kitchen, and rolls her eyes. “One last emergency scr-”

“It’s romantic,” Rachel says primly, and Isaac laughs, shaking his head. Only the very rosiest of optimists could call those two _romantic_. They’re in _heat_ , is what they are.


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

“...doesn’t matter,” Stiles is saying, and Peter pauses on the stairs as he realizes they’re at the edge of his hearing range. It’s a habit that becomes automatic in a werewolf family, taking a moment to register if a conversation is meant to be private or not. “Forget it.”

“Would you just tell me already?” Derek says. There’s an undercurrent there that has Peter blinking.

“Fine,” Stiles says, and Peter can hear the shrug. “It’s not important. I was just surprised. I didn’t think you’d-”

“Didn’t think I’d what?”

There’s a sound of shuffling, pages turning and then Stiles says absently, “My Derek didn’t like couscous. That’s all.”

The silence that follows that statement is positively arctic.

“Your Derek,” Derek says flatly.

_Ah, hell,_ Peter thinks tiredly. He’d noticed that once or twice in the past few months. The way Stiles said it unconsciously and the way Derek seemed to react as if the words like wolfsbane soaked whips flicking over his skin.

“I- well, yeah,” Stiles says, and then the turning pages stop. “Uh-

“So... _your Derek_ didn’t like couscous. And I _do_. So. What does that make me, Stiles?”

“What?”

“If I’m not _your_ -fucking _-Derek_ ,” the words are bitten out with perfect clarity, and Peter winces. “Then what exactly the fuck _am_ I, Stiles. The substitute Derek? _NOT-_ your-Derek?”

“Der-” Peter can hear the start of panic in Stiles’ voice.

“Because I’m really fucking sick of hearing about _your Derek_ , and all his many and varied psychoses and hang-ups and his food preferences and which side of the fucking bed and how fucking much you loved him, Stiles. How much you _still love him_.”

There’s a short, terrible silence.

Then Derek says, hoarse and unsteady, “I am really goddam sorry that I can’t be the fucked up mess of a guy you loved so much. I apologize for just being me.” Then he laughs, and Peter flinches at the sound of it. “I was never enough for anyone when I was growing up, so I really have no goddam idea why I thought it would be okay now, with you.”

“You’re enough,” Stiles says hoarsely, “you _are,_ Der-”

“What did you tell Devon, Stiles,” Derek cuts in. “When his girlfriend was still hung up on her ex like you are on yours. What advice did you give?”

_“No,”_ Stiles is saying over the top, panicked, “no, that’s not what this is.”

“Isn’t it?” Derek shoots back. “I mean, maybe it’s because I’m not some self-loathing, self-sacrificing brooding heroic type, who’s saved your life more times than you can count-”

_Oh Derek,_ Peter thinks.

“-but it sure as shit looks like that to me. I’m sure _your Derek_ would just suffer in silence and be grateful for whatever you have left to give, but-”

“Stop,” Stiles says, unsteady, “ _Please_ stop.”

There’s silence.

It stretches, and Peter raises his eyes to the glass paneled bookcase that he’s avoided looking at until now. It reflects the scene in the room, Stiles’ bent head and shoulders stooped like he bears the weight of Atlas – and Derek, pain and anger intertwined on his face. Peter bites his lip, wrestles with his own ego for a moment, and then forces himself to fade back up the stairs and away. No matter what he feels, he has no place in this argument. He should never have listened this long.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

Talia won’t lie and pretend she hadn’t secretly, in her heart of hearts, hoped Stiles and Derek might find one another again.

She knows what she saw in those memories, the rarity of it, and she knows what it is to have a mate. She knows that feeling, the other-half-of-you feeling that just can’t be described to anyone else. And she may be the no-nonsense alpha of a werewolf pack, but she also reads romance novels in her spare time. What else was she going to hope for?

And so, even though Anthony had shaken his head, brow furrowed, and lain awake at night worrying about the two boys dating, she’d thrown her faith behind the idea, and chosen to believe.

Shame that it’s come back to bite her in the ass, then.

Derek is listless, not angry. That’s the first terrifying observation she makes. There’s no fight in him, and it’s so unlike the impulsive boy she knew, the one she’s begun to see glimpses of again, in the past year. Since he’d come home unexpectedly and said _I missed you, Mom._

“I knew going in,” he says. His head hangs low in surrender. “I knew it was a risk.”

“Oh baby,” she says, and lets a hand come to rest on his nape. “Can you tell me?” she asks carefully. “What, exactly, the problem is?”

“He’s still in love with the other me,” Derek says, and it’s heartbreakingly matter-of-fact. “And I can’t even begin to explain how fucked up it feels to know that the guy I love isn’t over his ex, who is actually, literally, _me._ ”

Talia swallows. Yes. That’s definitely... an issue. What on earth kind of advice can she give for that?

“I know that he loves me,” Derek says, and she thinks that he’s probably talking more for his own benefit than anything else. “I know that. And we’re good together, in so many ways.”

“But,” she prompts.

“But–” he takes a huge breath. Stares at the floor some more. It’s only then that it dawns on her that he’s talking, without any resistance, about his _feelings_. Derek is many things, but one thing has always been true – the boy is not good at talking about emotions. He avoids, and deflects, and evades until there is absolutely no other option. If he’s _already_ at the talking stage, then...

Things are really, _seriously_ bad _._

“He makes these casual references to _my Derek._ ” His voice thickens on the last two words. “And not once, not fucking _ever_ , does he mean _me._ ” He takes a slow, shaky breath and adds, “I think it’s the absentminded part that kills me. It’s like – in the deepest recesses of his mind, the other one is _his_ Derek. And I’m just...” he shrugs helplessly... “the one who happens to be in this universe, I guess? Closest he could get to what he really wants?”

Talia, for one terrifying moment, seriously wants to hurt Stiles in ways that only an alpha can.

She draws in a deep breath. “Stiles is an amazing young man. You know I think a great deal of him. But, honey, he went through something that none of us can ever truly understand.”

Derek nods morosely. “I know. And I think at least part of this mess is because of the two sets of memories. It’s like there really is two different sides of him – I mean, _really_ different. And I knew, going in, that he had issues. I mean, he has post-traumatic stress, that’s for damn sure. And I thought that knowing that, having medical training would help. But it’s so different having to _live_ with it when it’s-”

 _Personal,_ she thinks. And it can’t get much more personal than feeling like you’re a substitute for someone else. “Are you- are you thinking of ending things?” she asks carefully.

There’s silence.

“Sometimes. Yeah,” Derek says, low. He runs a hand over his face. “I don’t think I can keep going like this much longer.”

She licks her lips and tries to think of the right thing to say. But before she can speak, he adds, “I know it’ll cause complications in the pack. I mean, I’ll try to-”

 _“No,”_ she says sharply, furious all at once.

He glances up, startled.

“The pack is not your concern,” she says, more gently. “The pack’s job, right now? Is to be a support to _you_ , not the other way around. Whatever is about to happen, whatever fallout is generated, the pack will cope, the pack will still be strong.”

“Yeah, but Stiles-"

“Stiles is pack,” she says, “he will always be. Whatever happens now, or twenty years from now, that will never change. But you are my _son_ , Derek. And there is nothing more important to me, or to the rest of your family, than your happiness. No- _one_ is more important.”

He stares up at her, eyes wide and glassy. It’s a knife in the heart to realize he’s genuinely surprised.

She’d misjudged him horribly all those years ago. She had let him have the distance she’d thought he needed to get over the humiliation of Kate, remembering her own mother saying _sometimes you have to let them go away for a while, to let them come back to you_. So she’d forced her grip to loosen, had let her son go where he would. And he’d taken it as rejection and Talia had never seen it, not once.

She won’t let her son down again.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

“I _took your side,_ Stiles,” Peter bites out.

Stiles blinks at him.

“When you came back, and you told us what could happen, I believed you. I _supported_ you.”

“I know.”

“And when that was done, I waited for years for you to remember us, for time to catch up, and then I tried to be the best friend to you that I could.”

“I-I know,” Stiles manages.

“Because I trusted you with my pack, and my family.”

The younger man’s face is pale and stricken now. He knows where Peter is going with this.

“I love him,” Stiles bursts out. “I _do,_ Peter. I fucking love him so _much_ -”

“Which Derek, though?”

_“This_ Derek,” he insists, though he pales. “I love him – how could I not?”

“And yet you persist-”

_“Peter.”_

He stops. Stiles, too, freezes, eyes flicking in surprise to the doorway where Catrin has appeared.

“That’s enough,” she says, more softly and Peter turns toward her.

She so rarely asserts herself, it’s instinct by now to subside when she does. And yet he has a low-simmering anger that is all the more powerful for being directed at _Stiles,_ who he has loved and protected for so long. Stiles, who Peter has put above the rest of the larger pack, above _Derek_ , his own flesh and blood. Peter had made a cold, rational decision all those years ago, that what he owed Stiles beat out blood ties and pack and family.

But the look on Derek’s face this morning-

It had been so close to the look he’d worn that night on the fire escape of Stiles’s apartment, when he’d been begging for forgiveness and Peter had shut him down for the hundredth time. Once he’d gotten Stiles back to Beacon Hills, Peter had gone out to the woods and gotten rotten stinking drunk on vodka and wolfsbane to wash away the memory of that look. Of Derek, who was effectively being punished for a mistake he had never even made.

“Catrin-” he begins.

“You’re not helping,” she says, calm and sure. “Not like this, anyway.”

He eyes her. His everything. His mate, his love, his partner. She’s so good at appearing unassuming, at being underestimated. Sometimes even Peter falls for it. He takes a deep breath, nods once and goes, stopping to drop a kiss on her upturned face.

He pauses in the hallway and listens. She’ll guess he’s there, of course.

“People forget,” she says, “that I do actually have a psychology degree. Just because I’ve chosen not to practice these past few years.”

“Oh,” Stiles says.

“You need help, Stiles,” she says, kind but firm. “Not from Derek, or Peter, or any well-meaning friend.”

“Not from you?”

Catrin sighs. “Ideally you would talk to a neutral stranger.”

“And explain to a nice neutral civilian my time-travel mindfuck with added werewolf shenanigans.”

“Yes,” she murmurs, wry. “It’s a problem.” He hears the familiar cadence of her steps, knows she has crossed the room to sink down into the couch.

“I know I need help,” Stiles says after a while. Peter can picture him hugging himself tight for comfort, eyes firmly fixed on the floor. The words emerge slowly, there’s lots of thinking in between. “I kinda suspected when I first got the memories back, to be honest.”

Catrin just waits.

“And then... I thought that maybe talking to Dad, being totally honest with someone I trusted would be enough.”

“But it’s not, is it?”

Peter can hear the hard swallow.

“Stiles.”

There’s a soft noise, of protest or assent, Peter can’t tell.

“Sit down, Stiles,” Catrin says, voice softer than silk.

Peter can’t tell what’s happening, but after a moment he hears a hitched breath and a mangled sob, and the picture becomes so clear. Catrin, her kind eyes looking down at Stiles’ bent head as he hides his face in her lap, and cries.

 

 

%MCEPASTEBIN%


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi guys, you're all awesome, but I'm feeling kind of guilty. I come in and read the comments and go, "well, maybe *this* chapter..." and then I scan the next chapter and go: "welp, no, that's not gonna make them feel any better at all. Whoops!"  
> everybody hold hands, and let's go

 

 

“Let me simple it up for you,” Stiles says. “Rachel likes you. A lot.”

“What?” Isaac stares. Stiles looks like warmed over crap right now, sitting at the Sheriff’s kitchen table a week after Thanksgiving. He’s pale, dark circles under his eyes, tension in every line of his body, and he’s been sleeping at the Sheriff’s all week.

Isaac hasn’t seen Derek for a couple of days, which is utterly weird, since the Seattle division are normally attached at the hip – sometimes literally, and Isaac steers his mind carefully away from that one time he’d walked unexpectedly into the Hale’s garden shed looking for the leaf blower and seen something that was both startlingly hot and really freakin’ awkward.

“You know how you like her and you’ve been trying to play it cool?”

“I’m not _playing it cool,”_ Isaac says, dumfounded by the very idea. How on _earth_ could Isaac locked-in-the-freezer Lahey, the teetotaler who serves drinks at a shitty local bar, ever be ‘playing it cool’? “Are you _kidding_ me?”

Stiles blinks. Looks Isaac over again. He’s not sure what the other man sees, but Stiles’s face softens, and he says, “Okay, let me rephrase. You know how you’ve been secretly pining for Rachel and thinking you’d never have a shot because she was totally out of your league?”

Isaac nods. Doesn’t wince. It’s brutal, but accurate.

“ _She’s_ been secretly pining for _you_.”

“No.”

“Yep.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Yah-huh.” Then Stiles holds up a hand. “And I’m gonna stop you there, because I’ve got nowhere to go but a _don’t even_ , or a z-snap, and I’m not sure either of us will ever recover from that. I may be bisexual, but there are limits.”

“But-”

“Isaac. I did not imagine this. I am not guessing. Do you understand me? My sources on this are _impeccable_.”

Isaac blinks at him. But. “But-”

Stiles waits. His brows go up. “But?”

“But she’s...” _Rachel_.

Stiles’s tired face softens. “Yeah. I know. She totally is. But trust me, whatever stupid luck I had, you have also inherited, my friend. You have snared the attention of a Hale.” He can’t quite disguise the wince when he says _whatever luck I had_.

 _Had_. Past tense.

“You guys are going to be okay,” Isaac says, because his mind may be buzzing to the tune of _Rachel Rachel Rachel_ but he’d be a Grade A Creep not to see the suffering right in front of him.

“I really hope so,” Stiles whispers. “Because I don’t think I can survive losing him twice.”

 _Twice?_ Isaac thinks, but this isn’t the time for questions. He stands up instead, wraps his arms around Stiles and pulls him in for a hug. It’s not easy for Isaac to reach out that way, but Stiles had apparently decided they’d reached bro-hug status a few weeks after their first lacrosse not-date, and... well, there’s really no other way to say it. Isaac liked it.

Between Stiles and Rachel and the other Hales, Isaac has had more hugs in the last two years than he’s had in the entire rest of his life since Mom died.

Stiles is stiff in his arms for a moment, then he just sags and lets his head drop onto Isaac’s shoulder.

“You’ll work it out,” Isaac whispers, and tries to ignore the way Stiles’s breathing has gone rough and shaky. “You will.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, quick, have this! it's all gonna be okay, I promise

 

 

“I talked to a practitioner,” Stiles says to Derek’s back.

Unseen, Derek frowns. What the fuck would Stiles need to see another doctor for? If he’d been sick, someone in Beacon Hills would have phoned Derek, no matter how spectacular their last fight had been, or how many nights they’d slept alone at their respective parents’ houses.

“She doesn’t–” Stiles swallows and tries again. “There’s no spell that she can think of that would-”

Ohhhh, a witch. Practitioner of _magic_ , Derek realizes in a rush, and then his blood seems to freeze in his veins at the implication.

“-but I think,” Stiles is saying, in that same careful, hopeless voice, “I think if I summoned her, maybe the Queen would... I’d owe _her_ , this time, but if she could just-”

Just _what_ , Derek wonders? What the hell is Stiles even thinking?

“If she could take away that other-” he swallows. “The fucked up parts. Maybe if I could just be- just the kid who grew up here. Went to college, became a cop. That guy.” He raises his eyes to Derek’s, and they’re glassy with pain and fear. “I’d probably forget you when she did the magic, but. All you’d have to do is make sure we met, and I’d fall in love with you again, I know I would. There’s no way I wouldn’t fall in love with you all over again and then you’d know. You’d _know_ it’s just the core of me, drawn to the core of you and-”

“Shut up,” Derek finally manages, through the frozen horror blocking his throat. “Shut the goddam fuck up, Stiles, what the fuck are you thinking _are you completely goddam fucking CRAZY?”_

 _We swear too much_ , a small voice inside his head whispers.

Stiles just stares at him. He looks beaten, the way Stiles should never look. He looks helpless and gutted hollow.

Derek tries to get control of his voice, but he still bursts out, “In what universe would I ever want any part of you to disappear?”

“But I keep fucking it up,” he whispers. He raises his hands to his head, fingers like claws as they dig into his own hair. “I’m driving you crazy and-”

“Yes. Yes you _are_. But this – _this_ more than any other damn fool thing you’ve ever done is driving me the most crazy of all,” and somehow Stiles’s face is cupped in Derek’s hands and he is half-shouting, “Never, ever, even _think_ about that, do you hear me? Don’t you _ever again_ think about cutting away parts of yourself for my benefit. _Jesus_.” He swallows hard and lets his thumb sweep over Stiles’ cheekbones.

He breathes in and out for a long time, staring at Stiles who stares blindly back. When Derek is finally steady he says firmly, “Nothing that hurts you or makes you less than yourself could _ever_ make me happy.”

Stiles is staring at him. “That’s- that’s really fucking romantic,” he says, and his voice wobbles when he says it.

“Well that’s because I love you, you moron.”

 

 

 

For a while they just stand there, arms locked around each other, breathing deep.

“Have you slept at all?” Derek asks finally. Peter had driven Derek back to Seattle a few days after Thanksgiving, leaving Stiles and the SUV behind in Beacon Hills without a word of farewell.

Not Derek’s finest moment, but he’d been genuinely afraid of what he might say if he stuck around.

And now Stiles is swaying on his feet. He shakes his head silently in answer, like a child.

Derek sighs. “Come on,” he says. “Come to bed.” He leads Stiles into the bedroom and does the very barest essentials to make him comfortable, shoes and jeans off, and then shoves him under the covers. There’s a moment’s panicked flailing when Derek steps back, but he rolls his eyes at Stiles and circles the bed, climbs in on the other side. As if he was going to go anywhere.

“I don’t know why I keep bringing him up,” Stiles says, voice thick. “I really don’t know _why_. It just... slips out.”

Derek breathes in deep and even. He has Stiles in his arms again for the first time in over a week. The scent of him, their skins pressed against one another, long fingers clutching. Derek flattens his hand on Stiles’s back and rubs slow, comforting circles.

 _Be grateful for what you have,_ Derek tells himself. He tries to imagine Stiles with half his memories cut away in an attempt to please Derek’s god-awful temper and self-esteem issues, and shivers.

“It’s all right,” Derek says. _Liar,_ he thinks. “We’ll figure it out.” He really hopes that one’s _not_ a lie.

“Catrin says I’m grieving.”

Derek blinks. His hand keeps moving in small circles, and Stiles’s breath is evening out.

 _Grief,_ Derek thinks, stunned.

Why the hell hadn’t he ever seen it that way? What an _idiot_ he’s been. He blinks at the ceiling and lets his mind run backwards, right back to the first time he’d seen Stiles in the bar and followed him home.

This whole time he’s been thinking of the other Derek ( _my Derek,_ his idiot fucking jealous side whispers) as Stiles’s ex. But he’s _not_. They hadn’t ended things in a screaming match or had cold stilted conversations over returning CDs and favourite t-shirts. There had been no ill-advised drinking binges in order to slur _I am so over him_ to utter strangers at a local bar.

The other Derek had been ripped away from Stiles like a - a murder victim. They’d been a happy couple torn apart inside of half an hour, if Derek remembers it right.

 _Grieving,_ Derek thinks, and his mind runs through what he knows of that process, going back through the past few years as his hand rubs in small circles and Stiles snuffles into Derek’s throat, limp with sleep and trust and exhaustion.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have some Valentine's Day schmoop...

 

 

Rachel’s family are werewolves. They. Are. _Werewolves_.

Now that she’s said it, he feels kind of massively stupid for not having figured it out on his own. The way Laura is incredibly intimidating, and Peter always seems to know things he shouldn’t...

Isaac blinks dumbly at her. Cora’s incredible strength and Derek’s amazing-yet-slightly-creepy way of knowing where Stiles is in the house at all times are suddenly making a LOT of sense.

“But you’re not?” he asks Rachel. “You’re... like me?”

She smiles, slow and soft. “I’m human,” she says. “Me and David both. Dad was human, though he took the bite after Laura was born, but even babies of two born werewolves can come out human.”

He nods. Right. Yeah, that... makes... sense? He’s having trouble even thinking that word in this context. Werewolves are actually, literally real. They exist outside of movies, which isn’t that much of a shock – the legends had to come from somewhere, he guesses. But to know they exist in _Beacon Hills_ and he has accidentally befriended a whole family of them...

 _That’s_ a little more of a challenge to comprehend.

“Huh,” he says. _“Huh.”_

“It’s a secret,” Rachel tells him. Her hand is warm in his, and for a moment he’s completely distracted by that sensation, the gift of her, enough that all thoughts of werewolves drop out of his head. It’s been months now, and it’s still amazing to Isaac that he gets to have this, that their lives are becoming more intertwined every day.

“Yeah,” he agrees, “I can see that.” Then he blinks, because. Her telling him is _huge_ , then. Like- _really._ Huge _._ It’s the kind of commitment you can’t take back and his heart starts beating a little faster as he looks up at her.

 _“Yeah,”_ he says again, with more meaning this time, and she gets it, gets that he’s understood what she’s signalling with this, because her smile spreads across her whole face and she falls into him, wraps her arms around him and holds on, because she’s already said she’s not letting go of Isaac anytime soon and after this he thinks he’s going to actually have to start believing it.

He feels the grin split his face, and laughs against her hair. “Rachel Hale,” he says, “I love you and your great big awkward werewolf family too.”

Her laugh at that is wet, verging on tears and he tightens his grip.

“I love you,” he says softly enough that he can barely hear it with his one ear.

“I know,” she whispers, “I love you too,” and it’s not until days later that Isaac realizes that for the first time in his life things are going well and he isn’t braced for it to inevitably, crushingly, end.

 

 

%MCEPASTEBIN%


	8. Chapter 8

 

 

 

They tip-toe around things for weeks before Derek feels ready to dive back in. He has a couple of long, upsetting conversations with Catrin one weekend when Stiles is working, and tries to figure out the best approach.

“Who knows about your old life?” Derek asks Stiles over a quiet breakfast in mid December.

(Well, it’s quiet for Stiles. Derek can hear the fucking endless loop of fucking Christmas carols the asshole downstairs won’t stop playing. Seriously? Does the guy not go into a mall _at all?_ Because anyone who hasn’t overdosed on Maria fucking Carey’s _All I Want for Christmas_ by now is obviously a shut-in. Derek is seriously contemplating breaking in just to drag a claw across the fucking CD and ensure some peace and fucking quiet in the apartment.)

Stiles glances up, brows questioning, and Derek tunes the music out.

“My Mom and Dad know,” Derek supplies for himself. “Peter. Your Dad?” The Sheriff obviously knew something, at least. Whether it was the whole truth was harder to figure out.

Stiles nods.

“No-one else? No-one else ‘til me?”

Stiles pushes the plate of toast away and reaches for his coffee to cradle instead. “Talia and Peter knew for years, obviously. While the o- while I was still oblivious,” he stammers. “They told Laura around the time you and I met.” He shakes his head.

Derek wonders if Stiles was about to say _the other me_.

“And you’ve only had both sets of memories for a year or so?” Derek asks.

“It’s over two years, now,” Stiles says softly. “That first night we met, in the bar – it had been over six months at that point.”

Derek nods, thinking it over. “So... when did you tell your Dad, then?”

Stiles takes a sip of coffee. Then he says, “Pretty much as soon as I could. I mean I spent most of the first day back in a kind of fugue state on the floor of my apartment,” he says, like it’s nothing, like an amusing anecdote.

Derek can’t help picturing it, Stiles, like a new arrival on earth, feeling alone and utterly disconnected from what was happening in his head. Had it hurt, Derek wonders? Stiles will never mention that part, Derek knows. He’s horrifyingly matter of fact about his own pain.

“And a few days later I realized I wasn’t... coping. So first chance I got I drove home, told Dad everything.”

Derek nods, mulling that over. He’s going to ask some more about that _not coping_ part, but that’s for another time. “So... you told him all the facts,” he says slowly. “Timelines. Events. People.”

Stiles nods. He’s confused.

“You told him about the- your relationship with-”

 _“Yes,”_ Stiles breaks in. Neither one of them is ready for the phrase _my Derek_ or _your Derek_ or any variation of that.

“But I’m guessing...” Derek says slowly, “...none of the nitty gritty stuff. Not with your Dad, or with my family, right?”

Stiles frowns at him. “Uh. I guess not?”

“Like the stuff you’ve been telling me,” Derek clarifies. “The little things. The details that make up a life you lived together.”

“No,” Stiles says slowly, lowering his cup to the table. “No, I didn’t – I mean, it’s not like I sat around with any of them talking about why caramel corn made me nostalgic or whatever.”

Derek nods and rubs a hand over his hair. He grimaces, then says, “I’m sorry I’ve been such as ass about it.”

“What?” Stiles stares at him, absolutely flabbergasted. “No- _no,_ you don’t-

“Yeah,” he replies heavily, “I do.”

 _“Derek,”_ Stiles says, and swallows hard, “if you spent a good portion of our time together comparing me to one of your exes and implied you liked them better, I’d fu-”

“But that’s not what you’re doing,” Derek broke in. “Not really. And I should have realized that.”

 _“No,”_ Stiles shakes his head vehemently, “no, you were _right_. My sad story does not give me a pass on this. I’ve been acting like a complete asshole and-”

“You’re grieving,” Derek says. “Catrin’s right.” _And thank God she spoke up,_ Derek thinks guiltily. Because he’d been enjoying his righteous fury way too much to actually come down from the mountain and try to think rationally. He owes his aunt, big time.

“Grieving doesn’t give me a license to make you feel like shit,” Stiles says.

“Well, no,” Derek says, though privately he thinks you do kind of get a pass for some stuff when you’re going through that kind of loss. He can remember well enough how he and Laura and the twins had reacted to Grandma’s death. There had been two wildly differing sets of reactions which Derek hadn’t thought of even once in this context. Which is a shame, because what Stiles was doing was a textbook Laura-and-Rachel.

“When my mother’s mother died – the previous Alpha,” he clarifies because he’s not sure Stiles knows that detail. “Laura was thirteen, I was around eleven, and the twins were nine or so. David was just a kid, he barely remembers any of this. Cora and I both kind of – locked down, I guess, after the initial shock and sadness.”

“Color me amazed,” Stiles murmurs, but he’s smiling, small and fond, and Derek has reached out to take his hand across the table before he’s formed a conscious thought.

“Laura though, and Rachel – they were just the opposite. They wanted to talk about her. A lot. Every time something reminded them, they’d bring her up. And Mom and Dad would talk to them about it, real understanding, telling the same stories we all know, as many times as they needed. It drove Cora and I crazy. The fights were _huge_. We just-”

He stops. There’s a flash of grief there, shocking in its intensity. “I still missed her just as much as they did,” he says, voice suddenly gruff. It’s stunning to realize he still carries so much of that childhood guilt, the worry that his mother would think he hadn’t cared as much because he’d grieved differently. Privately. “I loved her too, you know? I missed her too.”

“I know,” Stiles says, very softly.

“But I just- it hurt too much to talk about her all the time. To walk around the corner and have all these memories just dumped all over me every five minutes.”

Stiles kisses his hand. “Yeah,” he says.” I get it.”

Derek swallows. “It took weeks before Dad kind of figured it out. He took us aside and explained that they needed to do what they were doing, just like we needed _not_ to. But to them, not talking about her was like pretending all those memories had never happened. To us we were, I don’t know, protecting them? Tucking the memories away somewhere safe where they’d... stay happy and not get all tied up in the grief.”

Stiles makes a small, soft noise. Derek drags his mind out of the past and looks at the man across the table. The man that feels like his whole life, sometimes. “I was being a jealous idiot,” Derek says, “and I wasn’t thinking about _why_ you were doing what you were doing, I was just reacting to the way it made me feel in that moment.”

Stiles’s brow wrinkles.

“I heard you talking about your werewolf ex in the hospital that first day,” Derek says. “And I kind of... chased the idea round and round in my head every day after. Why weren’t you still with him? Why would any wolf leave someone as amazing as you when you were such a perfect fucking mate and clearly still loved him? I couldn’t let it go.”

Stiles whole face softens.

“But then, like an idiot, I never... _reframed_ it when I found out the truth. I still feel, in my head, like he’s that ex you never got over. But that’s _not_ what happened. For you, he died that day,” Derek says as gently as he can, but he firms his grip on Stiles’s hand. “Yeah?”

He averts his eyes. “Yeah,” he manages.

“And you needed to process that. Like Laura and Rachel did. You needed to talk about him, about all the good memories you didn’t want to lose, the tiny details that only you knew. You want someone else to know that he existed, to share things about him. But you aren’t around your Dad or my family enough to do that. I’m the first person you’ve had in your day-to-day life in Seattle that knew about him, what he was to you, the whole truth of it. And so you told me.”

Stiles has covered his face with his free hand. Derek doesn’t try to pull it away, doesn’t press. He just sits there, and waits, and tries to put himself in the other Derek’s place.

God knows if other-universe-Derek had any idea what was actually happening as Stiles disappeared in front of him. If his ...consciousness? soul? memories? went anywhere when that timeline disappeared. Maybe he’s watching over them now from werewolf heaven, or maybe it’s like he was vaporised, and never existed at all. Derek doesn’t have a clue, or any firm beliefs about this stuff, just middle of the night wonderings.

But either way the man deserves to be remembered. He loved Stiles, loved his pack. He suffered horribly for a simple mistake, and he tried, in a kind of messed-up way, Derek thinks, to fix the wrongs he could see. If Derek is going to sometimes struggle with the way Stiles processes this, well, he can bear it.

He gets to have Stiles, after all. He has to keep sight of that one, important fact.

He gets to have what the other Derek lost.

Stiles mumbles something so low and muffled Derek’s werewolf ears don’t catch it.

“Stiles?” he murmurs, and shifts enough to lean close.

He is shaking his head, but lifts his face to Derek’s. There are tears on his face.

“If our positions were reversed, and you were talking about _my Stiles,”_ he says, low and shaking. “If you said _my Stiles_ and you meant anyone but me?” He stops and swallows.

“I would fucking rip you to pieces,” he finishes in a rush. “I would. You have _no idea_ how fucked-up possessive I can be, Derek.”

Derek gives him a look. He does, actually, have some kind of clue. Because when Stiles ran into Lyssa that one time in the hospital car park, he’d been flat and cool to the point of hilarity. Derek can forsee a _lot_ of awkward moments in their future because, fact of life – sometimes people are assholes about aggressively flirting with a handsome doctor, whether their partner is _standing right there_ or not.

Then Stiles grins ruefully. “So how’s that for fair? I didn’t even notice I was fucking doing that to you.”

“That’s why I can forgive you,” Derek points out. “Deliberately hurting me would be one thing. You weren’t doing it deliberately.”

“But I was still _doing it_.”

“So _stop_ ,” Derek says, throwing his hands up in the air. “If it bothers you so much, stop.” He wishes he was a big enough person to say, _no, I’ll be okay, do what you need to do,_ but he’s honestly not. It hurts. It just fucking _hurts_ to not be the one Stiles is referring to when he says _my Derek_.

Stiles is shaking his head now. Derek watches him curiously.

“I do not deserve you,” he murmurs, mostly to himself.

A slow smile spreads itself across Derek’s face. They’re going to work this out. He can feel it. “Oh I think you do,” he says. “In fact, I think history shows that you deserve me twice over, Stiles Stilinski.”

Stiles snorts, shakes his head, and flings himself into Derek’s arms. They cling hard to one another.

So that’s all right, then.

For now.

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

 

Stiles knocks back his first drink while he’s still in uniform, standing up at the kitchen counter. He stares down at the floor for a while, then goes back into the bedroom and strips methodically, not giving a shit about the badge and the belt and everything he’ll have to put together again for tomorrow’s shift. Not today. It’s why he hadn’t bothered to change at the precinct, had just gotten the fuck out of there.

It was all too close to the stuff he holds in. Every. Single. _Day_.

When he’s comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt, he stalks back into the kitchen and throws down another shot, lets the burn in his throat linger before he swallows. When he drinks like this it’s punishment as much as escape. He doesn’t even like whiskey, really.

If the wife hadn’t had dirty blonde hair. If the husband hadn’t snarled something about _animals_ as the detective dragged him to the squad car. If Stiles hadn’t seen the hatred, the disgust in their eyes.

Maybe then he wouldn’t be ruining a beautiful spring day still thinking about it.

When the front door opens the apartment it’s long past the point where he should have turned on some lights. The room is dim and he’s ridiculously startled. He’s not sure how long he’s been standing there, dark thoughts filling his head.

“Stiles?” Derek asks, wary. He’d have caught scent and heartbeat to know Stiles’s physical location, but he’d also have caught the mood Stiles is no doubt projecting. Shit. He should have gone to Devon’s to vent. Or taken Trisha up on the offer of a drink.

Derek appears in the kitchen doorway, in street clothes, with a bag of groceries tucked under one arm.

For a moment Stiles teeters on the edge of leaving. Derek won’t try to stop him. He could go to a bar, could get good and drunk and keep all of the ugly shit in his head a secret, like he always has before. Then he thinks about the way Derek had looked at him the last time he’d brought up his other life, the other Derek, and he knows that keeping it quiet was quietly killing this good thing they’ve found.

Ugly or not, Stiles needs to show who he really is. Catrin has been pretty firm on this point.

“Bad shift?” Derek says, but it’s not really a question. He leans back and snaps on the living room lamp, giving them a soft glow to see by.

“Hate crime,” Stiles says after a long moment. He feels his lip curl. “Some assholes beat up a Muslim store owner and trashed his place.”

Derek lets out a breath and shakes his head. He puts down the groceries and stays there, leaning against the counter, watching. In moments like this Stiles is grateful for the bad shit Derek also sees on the job – the wolf knows better than to attempt comfort when Stiles is like this.

“You need to talk it out?” he asks instead.

Stiles tosses back another shot, then puts the cap on the bottle and gives it a little shove, watches it slide across the counter until it’s out of immediate reach. He turns toward Derek, puts his hands flat on the tiny table where they’d eaten breakfast this morning, and when he looks up he can see his own reflection in the shiny surface of the oven door.

He looks... wild, eyes glittering with rage, and he stares straight at himself instead of Derek as he says, “I keep tabs on her, you know.”

Derek goes still.

“On _Kate,”_ Stiles clarifies, as if they both didn’t already know who he was talking about. But there’s a satisfying bite in the saying of her name. The hard _k_ , the sharp _t,_ the way his lips curl back to bare his teeth. It’s a good name for expressing contempt. Hatred. Rage.

Stiles thinks of the pack up in Ontario that survived an arson attack because of Peter’s warning. Thinks of the five year jail term Kate had received for her part in that. She’ll be out soon, and Stiles-

Stiles will be watching.

“I didn’t know,” Derek returns quietly.

Stiles’s mouth twists. “No,” he says, “you wouldn’t. I’ve kept that shit pretty quiet.” He pushes upright and looks straight at Derek this time. “Tried to be the well-adjusted version of myself around you.”

Derek’s gaze doesn’t waver.

“But the truth is, Doctor Hale,” he says, and _oh_ , Stiles always hates himself a little when he gets like this, “I’m not always well adjusted. I’m not always on the side of the angels.”

“Do you think I didn’t know you had a dark side?” Derek asks, and now _his_ tone is lightly mocking. “I’m not stupid, Stiles.”

“I have very detailed fantasies about killing her,” Stiles says deliberately. He wants there to be no misunderstanding. “I have things in place to cover several contingencies, if things should ever play out that way. And I’m a cop, Derek. I know a _lot_ of ways to get rid of a body.”

Derek’s lips tighten. He lets out a long breath. “Yeah,” he says, “That doesn’t surprise me.”

Stiles narrows his eyes. “And?”

“And what?” Derek’s brows lift. “I know what she’s capable of. I know what she put you through. The pain she caused. It’s personal for you, and theoretical for me. Do you think I’m going to judge you for coping with pain that I can’t even begin to imagine?”

“It’s not a fucking _coping mechanism,_ Derek,” Stiles begins, hands fisting. “This is _real_.”

“Yeah, I get that, Stiles,” Derek says. “Believe me, I already know you’re a man of action.” It comes out weary, resigned, and Stiles blinks, wrongfooted. He’d expected disgust. Recoil. Derek’s a doctor, he’s the _polar opposite_ of a killer.

“What the hell does _that_ mean?”

“It means that my _human_ _boyfriend_ is an inner-city _cop_ , Stiles,” Derek throws up his hands, exasperated. “I see a lot of bad shit on the job, I know _exactly_ what is out there, okay, and I watch you walk out that door every day knowing you don’t have anything to protect you except your weapon, your mind, and your partner. It means I fucking _worry,_ okay? I can heal from almost anything, but _you’re_ the one confronting fucking junkies and armed robbers and carjackers on a daily basis.”

Stiles gapes at him.

“And I _know_ you can handle yourself,” Derek says, slapping his hand down on the counter. “So do _not_ start any shit with me about that. But I care what happens to you, so yes, I am going to spend time during my day to wonder if you are okay, and to hope to fucking Christ that you’re being careful, that your partner is trustworthy, that your backup aren’t homophobic assholes, that they will arrive on time, that something as random as bad fucking luck doesn’t rear its ugly head and take you away from me.”

Derek’s shouting by the end, and Stiles feels like all those drinks have hit him at once. His legs are wobbly, and his throat is tight, and he half-falls into a chair, still staring at Derek’s flushed face.

“I- I didn’t know,” he says numbly. “Der.” He holds out one shaking hand to the beta, who stares at him, chest heaving, then stumbles across the kitchen floor and grasps it, hard. Derek folds up onto his knees in front of Stiles and flings himself forward. In the next second they’re wound tightly around one another, both breathing hard.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles manages, some time later. “Shit, I’m sorry for not... I didn’t know it scared you so much.”

Derek shakes his head silently, face still pressed against Stiles’ heart.

There’s silence again, and then some time later Stiles murmurs, “I remember my Mom used to worry.” He presses a kiss to Derek’s hair, inhales the scents of the ER that always seem to linger. “She tried to keep it under wraps,” he says, “because of me, I guess, but now that I look back I can see it. They had a ritual they used to do whenever Dad left for work. For good luck, I guess.” he goes quiet again, then, because he rarely talks about his Mom. And a tiny jolt goes through Stiles as he realizes he’s never told anyone that. Not even... the other Derek.

“I am careful,” he murmurs into Derek’s hair, a long time after. “I swear to you. I wouldn’t do that to you- or to my Dad. I make myself as safe as I can possibly be, every single day.”

Derek’s hands tighten, then loosen. He makes a small noise. When he finally pulls back just enough to look Stiles in the eye, he’s breathing evenly, and they stare at one another for a long time. Then Derek seems to make a decision. “You know what it’s like...” he says. “To lose a mate.”

Stiles sucks in a breath like he’s been stabbed.

“Don’t ever do that to me,” Derek says, and it costs him something to say what comes next, Stiles can tell. “Because the way you felt about him – that’s how I feel about you.”

“No,” Stiles bursts out, because that’s just – that’s just so fucking _wrong_. “No, Der, _no_. That’s not true.”

Derek’s face pales, and Stiles curses his stupid, clumsy tongue.

“That’s how _I_ feel,” he says, and _shit_ why can’t he be clearer. “How _we_ feel about each other,” he says, more urgently, and he reaches down to grip one of Derek’s hands, squeezes it as hard as he can, til the bones grind against one another. “Not the way I felt about _him_ , the way I feel about you. Now.”

Derek shakes his head, slow, disbelieving. “It’s all ri-”

“I swear to fucking Christ,” Stiles says, “if you choose _now_ to argue with me-” _annnd_ he doesn’t really have a threat big enough to cover that. “I know how I feel. I know what I’m feeling now and it’s not some echo of before, or settling for second best, or any of the fucking awful things you’ve been telling yourself.”

Derek’s mouth is trembling. “I know I can’t expect you to-”

 _“Derek,”_ Stiles half-shouts, “oh my god this is not the fucking time to discover your self-sacrificing stoic side. That is one thing I have definitely _not_ missed from before.”

Derek just blinks at Stiles as he goes on, “Of the two of us here, which one of us knows how it feels to have a mate?” And God, this is so typically them, isn’t it, that a declaration like this would devolve into a half-argument.

Derek eyes him with dawning hope.

Stiles takes a deep breath and manages not to shout when he says, “I’ve told you things I never told him, not in all the years we were together.” He brushes the backs of his fingers down Derek’s cheek. “Do you understand?”

Derek’s free hand is gripping his thigh. There’ll be bruises tomorrow. The beta nods, licks his lips.

“It doesn’t mean I don’t still love him. I don’t know if you can understand that,” Stiles begins nervously. He doesn’t want to screw things up, but he has to be honest. It was the first and most important thing they’d agreed on, months ago when everything started to go to shit. “I think... part of me will always love my alpha.” Bless Catrin for her suggestion of using the other Derek’s designation when they talk.

Derek just nods.

“But I know what falling in love feels like, gorgeous,” Stiles says with a wobbly smile. “And I’m smack-dab in the middle of it, have been for a while. And it’s not a substitute for anything,” he adds, because this is more complicated than most people’s how-we-met-and-got-together stories, and he has to nail down every possible misunderstanding. “It’s beautiful and terrifying, all on its own.”

“No shit,” Derek manages, his voice watery.

Stiles manages a shaky smile, a terrible kiss, and then he draws Derek back in until their arms are wrapped around each other again. This isn’t a passionate moment, it’s survivors clinging together after a storm, and he breathes in as evenly as he can until he feels Derek’s breaths synch up with his.

“One day,” he says quietly, his cheek pressed to Derek’s and his eyes focused on the last of the sunset happening outside the kitchen window, dusk settling down this fucking awful, wonderful day.

“One day, years from now, when I’ve worked through all the shit I’m carrying, and you’ve finally started to believe that I’m choosing you for you...”

Derek presses a little closer, makes a small noise that’s part-comfort, part agreement.

“I’m going to marry you, one day,” Stiles says.

Derek’s arms tighten.

“We’re going to commit to each other in front of the pack, our family and friends. And we’re going to be so strong, by the time we’re ready. We’ll have only honesty between us, even when it hurts. We’ll know the worst of each other, and we’ll forgive our mistakes because we want to be together more than we want to be angry.”

“Uncle Peter will get ordained just so he can conduct an embarrassing and inappropriate ceremony,” Derek mumbles into Stiles’s shirt.

He barks out laughter. “You’re right. God.” Stiles shakes his head.

“Mom will cry in public for the first time in years.”

“My Dad will cry in public for the first time ever,” Stiles adds.

He feels Derek smile against his shirt.

“We should get on a waiting list for those weird dogs – what are they called, pugs? So they can be ring bearers and wear little bow ties to match the wedding party,” Stiles adds thoughtfully. Derek is already snickering.

“You don’t even _like_ pugs.”

“It’d be worth it to see the look on Laura’s face.”

Derek throws back his head and really laughs at that one. “She can lead them in on silk ribbons. Or if we got three, she and the twins, one each.”

“Oooh, that is a beautiful image,” Stiles says, watching the way his mate’s throat works and his teeth flash in an easy moment of joy he’s never seen on anyone else but this Derek. _His_ Derek. His beautiful, _beautiful_ mate. It’s going to be Stiles’ job to make him laugh like that, every day, if he can.

He swallows and manages to say around the lump in his throat, “We kind of _have_ to get married now, even if we don’t want to. It’s our pack duty to make that moment happen.”

Derek catches his look and the laughter tapers off, eyes softening. “I love you,” Derek says.

“Even when I’m being evil?” Stiles says lightly. But not really. Because he’s been carrying the Kate stuff around for a while now, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to give that up, even if Derek begs him to. It’s like when someone with OCD has to check the locks three times before leaving home. Stiles _has_ to know where she is. He has to _know_.

One big, capable hand comes up to cup Stiles’s face. “Maybe _especially_ when you’re being evil,” Derek says, and Stiles’s heart does a double beat because damn if the wolf doesn’t look like he means it.

 

 

 

%MCEPASTEBIN%


	10. Chapter 10

 

 

Isaac’s never had a Fourth of July like this. It’s a fucking TV cliché, is what it is. They’re doing the giant barbeque complete with picnic tables on the lawn of the Hale house, and it seems like half of Beacon Hills is here. The Sheriff’s department is well represented, along with a large portion of the town’s small businesspeople (Talia’s doing, he supposes), and David has showed up with about ten college friends from Berkeley’s rowing team in tow, so the 18-20 female demographic seems to be feeling fairly positive about the whole thing.

Isaac turns in a circle and surveys the family he’s beginning to think of as his.

Cora and Peter are having some passive aggressive low-level argument that Isaac is pretty sure is about bonfires and fireworks. He’s staying well away from that one, and it’s not cowardly, it’s just _smart_. Witness the way Talia is carefully skirting the pair of them in order to greet the deputy mayor, who has just arrived and is wearing truly regrettable plaid shorts.

Anyway, Cora will be starting on the food any minute, and then it’ll be passive aggressive arguments with her father about the proper way to grill, so... there’s that to look forward to.

Laura is hugging Derek and Stiles, the last-minute arrivals who were due over an hour ago. It’s possible they’re in heat again, or... still.

Stiles is laughing at something Derek just said, something that put a sour-lemon look on the beta’s face, and Laura is rolling her eyes. _They look better_ , Isaac thinks for about the third time since the Seattle Divison piled out of Derek’s SUV.

He’d been truly, genuinely afraid it was over, when he’d seen them briefly at New Year’s. Stiles had looked like shit. He’d lost weight, which he really couldn’t afford to. He’d looked guilty, and hunted, and darkly angry in a way that had startled Isaac. He still wasn’t sure how a person with Stiles’s fairly vanilla life history carried that much anger.

But Talia said the pair of them have been going to counselling, and judging by their body language today-

“They’re okay,” Rachel says, appearing at his elbow without warning.

Being human in a wolf family has given her some seriously ninja stealth skills. Isaac had known he was in over his head with Rachel the first time he’d done his usual Dad-related overreaction to someone sneaking up behind him. He’d smashed his elbow into a shelf in the restaurant kitchen, broken a hell of a lot of something and Rachel hadn’t given a shit about anything other than Isaac’s pain.

She hadn’t mocked, not even _close_ , and he’d been so automatically braced for abuse he’d barely noticed when Cora started in on him about the glassware shattered all over the floor. He still remembers the open-mouthed shock when Rachel had rounded on her twin, furious and protective, and the warm feeling that had lodged in the bones of his ribcage. The warm feeling that was, apparently, never going to go away.

“Yeah,” he says, and smiles down at his fiancé as she worms under his arm. “Looks like it.”

“Mom said there’s some kind of story there, what they’ve been struggling with,” Rachel confides softly. “Apparently we’re having a family meeting over lunch tomorrow for a big reveal.”

“Well, they’re probably not pregnant,” Isaac says, and she laughs, pressing close. “Wait- they’re _not_ pregnant, right? That’s not a thing?” Fifteen yards away, Anthony smothers a laugh, damn werewolves and their super-hearing.

“No, babe,” she snickers, “that’s not a thing. Though they sure as hell are trying.”

“It’s _romantic,”_ Isaac says, straight-faced.

And then the two of them are laughing like idiots, watching Stiles and Derek greet Catrin with warm, lingering hugs while the rest of Beacon Hills stakes out tables and lays out picnic blankets around them. The first notes of _Sweet Home Alabama_ drift across from the wireless speakers David has painstakingly spread around the clearing, and in the distance the Sheriff is approaching, wide smile all over his face.

Stiles hasn’t spotted his father yet. His eyes are fixed on the thing that Isaac spent half an hour putting up this morning, after getting a sneaky text Derek must have sent from the road.

Stiles says something short but obviously heartfelt, and Derek’s smile is so soft and sappy Isaac looks away, automatically embarrassed.

At the corner of the Hale house, strung between the porch and an old tree covered in carved initials, hangs a huge hammock, swaying gently like an invitation.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for everyone who came along on this journey.


End file.
